We had a really good time on holiday. We made several new friends and that was very special and meaningful for us. It is somewhat a strange experience to have people you have only known for a few days to pray over you and even weep over you and with you-a group of people completely open to the Holy Spirit’s direction. We felt such a kinship with these people even though we had only been in the field for a year and these couples had been in the field for 7 to 50 years. The combined years of service of these 6 couples and one single was well over a 100 years of service to the Lord in the mission field. You want to know what I liked so much. There was no fluff. These were straight up, straight shooting, no B. S. kind of people- they called it just like they see it, they did not over spiritualize anything. It just is what it is. Their insight and understanding of missions and the mission field and the culture was/is priceless. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the mission field but there is also often a thing called “a miscarriage of vision” that is also happening and it is not as rare as one would like to think or hope. My philosophy of missions has changed by being a full time missionary and not a part timer. The picture is much clearer and fuller by living in the field. It is something a part timer can not see and must take the word of the full timer. I plan to try and articulate at a later time what I mean. There is a very clear theme among missionaries in the field about what does and does not work in very specific areas of mission philosophy. The Lord has given us a huge gift by being here this last year. He has opened our eyes to many things that could only be opened by being here. Our challenge is to process, remember, apply, and share what we have see and been taught

PRAYER REQUESTS

There are many things we would appreciate your prayers for:

--chief among them right now are the dogs. We need to at least have arrangements that someone will be taking them before we leave on Tuesday. We have had a few people interested, but no one has decided for sure. We actually considered leaving them at the school to guard the shop and so forth, but they didn’t want them. Of course many of the nationals would love to have them, but quite frankly, that would be too dangerous. They just don’t see dogs as pets the way we do, and when you can barely feed your own family, buying dog food is not a priority. If these dogs aren’t feed, they will get extremely dangerous. And Elijah as the man still likes to assert his authority every once in a while, so you have to show him who is boss, and that also would not be very safe. So please pray we would get a family who would like them before Monday otherwise we will have to put them down.

--we are back to the school today (Friday) to then have Saturday and Sunday to finish the last minute details and packing. People will be coming for last goodbyes too. Please pray we have time to get everything done and not feel too rushed and be able to enjoy the last few days. Pray the packing goes well.

--pray for our flights-especially for Henry. We have an 8 hour flight to London first, then an overnight. The next flight is 10 hours, then a 3 hour layover (for customs and whatnot) at Chicago, and the last 2 hour flight to MSP. Henry is very busy and very LOUD when he doesn’t get his way! Pray he will travel well.

--continue to pray for our housing when we get back to Minnesota

--pray for our income. We so appreciate the many of you that are continuing to financially support us through this period of transition. Yes, Brian will need a job; but honestly, that is not our first priority for when we get back, and would not be the healthiest for us as a family. We need time to debrief, transition, and heal some wounds. This last week at the missionary care seminar taught us some things we need to do when we get back for everyone’s sake.

PRAISES

--we meet and were ministered to by such a wonderful group of missionaries, now friends, this last week. What a humbling experience to have people we had just met weep over us in prayer! It was like being in our prayer group back home! We love these guys!

--We had a great time at Livingstone. We have some awesome pictures of us about 10 feet away from the edge of the Falls. We said fun things like “heart attack” when we took the pictures for the Grandmas. We’ll post some pictures and notes on those too. Had a few elephants get mad at us too!

It has been a most excellent time at the missionary care seminar. Several others decided to come at the last minute. One of the families has 4 girls as well so the kids are having a great time. We go to another house about 5 km away from 8-12 and leave the kids with some of the local ladies to watch. A lot of what we are learning is just a refresher from MTI but it has been almost 2 yrs since we were there. In the last month we had been looking through our manual essentially seeing where we came up short in our training. One of the things we have heard and learned first hand is that one of the greatest needs in the mission field is missionary care. There are a few mission agencies that are actively addressing the need but not many. One of the biggest things we have learned is you can not expect your church or mission agency to care for you, you must do what is necessary to care for yourself. That is one area that we failed in, we expected to be cared for and we should not have. We are NOT leaving because of burnout even though we have been in burnout for a while me (Brian) especially. Our/my mistake was we did not take the necessary actions to combat it. There was always more on the list to do and more other stuff that we saw that was more of a priority to get done, but everything was a priority (which means nothing was). So what did we try to do….we tried to do everything and that was wrong. We knew better but we allowed the pressures to get to us to get things done. I have to take the responsibility/blame for that, I did not say “no” soon enough when I knew I should. So now what? We learn from our mistakes and go forward. We trust the Lord to provide for ALL our needs. And we do what is necessary to heal up. This is just one of the many reasons why we must leave-one of the lessons we learned.

need a little help

Need a little info from someone out there---

we are flying British Airways. We land in Chicago before going on to Minneapolis. Can someone please tell me how customs works there? Are they good to work with? Do they have someone to take the bags right away? I think some of the summer teams this year flew back this way?

Continued prayers are welcome! We are so busy on this side of the ocean, we don't have time to do anything on that side. So pray for Ben as he is trying to help as he can. We don't know where we are going to live. We can stay with parents for a bit, but it would be best for all if that didn't have to be for too long. We don't have a vehicle anymore, so will need to find another big van. And of course, no job/income as of yet.

But we know God is in control and we are continuing to see and hear confirmations left and right about the journey we are on. God is good-all the time! God is Faithful! God is GOD!

more to come

I know you all are waiting to hear more news from this side of the ocean! I see in my analyticals that over 525 different people checked out our blog this last month-some of you check often! Most days well over 75 visits. Thank you for your continued support and prayers for us as we travel on the next step of our journey!

Really, more will be coming, but right now we are way busy! We have a few posts written in notebooks, they just need to be typed. Maybe I will have time to type on the way to Victoria Falls this weekend.

We leave Zambia on October 6th, arriving in Minneapolis on October 7th.

It was an interesting morning (a few weeks ago now). Two brothers of the local headman came to see me. The one I helped a few weeks back with some clothes for his girlfriend and new born baby, he wanted to check and see if it was okay to come in the afternoon so everyone can greet properly and the other brother had an interesting “problem”. He was looking to buy some ammunition for a shotgun he has. I started asking him questions about what kind of shotgun it was, 12ga, 20ga, 410. He didn’t understand what I meant. Then they offered to bring the gun to me so I can see it and determine what it is and if I can “help”. What was strange is I was told that there was no one else who had a gun in the area, obviously that was not entirely true. Why did they come to me? Because that is what they do; we have been the go to people around here. And I am known as the gun guy. I have several and I am known to carry one. Do they stay away from me because of them? Obviously not.
I went out and did a little target practicing with the pistol the other evening; it helps me to relieve tension. I had just sold the pistol so I wanted to shoot it a little more before it went. Kelly came out and I gave her a lesson in shooting, then Cybil and Mariah came for their turn as well. They had been on me for a while to teach them to shoot. I need to do more of that. I think Cybil would like to hunt but I am not sure she has the patience or she would be to busy reading that a deer would walk right in front of her and she would never know. Kelly wants to know just for her own protection, I cannot blame her. The other night was a perfect example. It was a little before 1 am. We are sleeping and I wake up to the dogs going crazy and someone outside yelling. So I get up grab my pistol which I keep next to the bed and go outside. Someone is standing out by the garden taunting the dogs. Why? Because he was drunk. Now I do not know if this guy is a silly drunk, a stupid drunk, or a mean drunk. I knew he was 1 out of the 3 for sure, but I didn’t know about the other 2. And I am not going to take any chances. I yell at him to get going and that he doesn’t belong here. He decides to move on. I just sat and listened to him for the next ½ hr singing and yelling as he went down the road. It sounded like he came from the other side of the river and walked through the campus. I know he came down the road from the shop side, not the entrance side, Needless to say I never went back to bed. Why? Because you just don’t know.

proper goodbyes

We did a few of our “proper” goodbyes today and yesterday. Last night we went up to see the Headwoman and her deputy. The kids had drawn her some pictures and we also gave her a photo of the family from the Fall Festival. We gave her a BK Dairy jacket and a container of strawberries. Oh did she love those!! We told her soon David could get her a few plants that she could put up by her house and let them spread. For Alex (her deputy) we gave a BK Dairy hat and a flannel jacket. We had a nice talk and she shared how she enjoyed that we had fellowshipped with them (ate their food, learned some of their language, fit in with the village well, helped the nationals get things in Lusaka), but she understood that there were times for everything and this is part of life, that we are part of the family but now must leave.
Then this morning we went to see Chief Bunda Bunda. He was very glad that we came. He explained it is tradition that when you come into a chiefdom, you come to greet and then when it is time to leave you say the proper goodbye. He wanted to know why we wanted to leave. We told him we didn’t! But it was what we had to do. He wanted to know when we would be coming back-we are most welcome in his Chiefdom and he will miss us. The kids also drew him pictures, we gave him a large snap from the Fall Festival of our family, and he also got a BK Dairy coat. I had some various spices that we brought for the ladies who cook for him, some sugar and some sweets-chocolate chips. He was very glad we came. We got a family picture with him in his ceremonial chair. It’s on my camera phone though, so I will need to do some photo-shopping to get us all on the same page. He wants a copy of that picture too. Before we left Brian also got to pray over the Chief, he thought that was pretty cool.